Nicoli Nattrass

Last updated

Nattrass was director of the AIDS and Society Research Unit at CSSR, which studied the socioeconomic and political impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. [6] Between 2002 and 2012, Nattrass published a number of academic articles and books that examined the history, sources, characteristics of HIV/AIDS denialism and its impact on HIV prevention and AIDS treatment. [1] [2]

In her book The Moral Economy of AIDS in South Africa (2004), written at the height of AIDS denialism, Nattrass repudiated the South African government's claim that antiretroviral drugs were unaffordable. She demonstrated that mother-to-child transmission prevention programs would be less costly to the government than treating sick children who acquired AIDS from their mother. [7]

Nattrass's research on the cost-effectiveness of HIV medicines was submitted as evidence in the Treatment Action Campaign's lawsuit before the Constitutional Court, which culminated in a court order compelling the government to provide public access to antiretroviral treatment. [8] Nattrass was critical of President Thabo Mbeki's HIV/AIDS policy, [9] and she was threatened with libel charges by a government minister for documenting the South African Cabinet's support for unproven HIV treatments. [10]

In a study published in 2008, Nattrass estimated that more than 340,000 unnecessary AIDS deaths in South Africa between 1999 and 2007 were the result of this policy. She attributed the slow and ineffective governmental response directly to the influence of AIDS denialists. [11] The results of this study were later corroborated, using a different methodology, by scientists at Harvard University. [12] They too modelled AIDS-related mortality and morbidity in South Africa as the result of the government's decision not to provide public access to HIV medicines.

In a 2012 article in Skeptical Inquirer and her book The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back (2012), Nattrass examines the landscape of the AIDS-denialist community and identifies four groups of characters who propagate denialism: hero scientists (provide scientific credibility); cultropreneurs (promote non-evidence based, unproven alternative treatment); living icons (proof that HIV is not the cause of AIDS) and praise singers (journalists and film makers who promote the cause). She also describes the campaign of pro-science activists to discredit AIDS conspiracy theories, defend evidence-based medicine, and combat pseudoscience. [13] [14]

Other scholarship

Race and class

Nattrass has produced a large body of work with Jeremy Seekings on race and class in South Africa. In their first book, Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa (2005), they argued that during the 20th century, race gave way to class as the driver of inequality in South Africa, especially after the rise in unemployment from the mid-1970s. [3] Their later work, notably Policy, Politics and Poverty in South Africa (2015) and Inclusive Dualism (2019), highlighted growing class differentiation and the ongoing salience of race in South Africa.

Wildlife and conservation

At iCWild, where she is co-director, Nattrass studies human–wildlife conflict in Southern Africa. [15] In 2020, she published a commentary in the South African Journal of Science that suggested that personal attitudes – attitudes towards wildlife and conservation, as well as materialist values – were more important than race in predicting study and career choices pertaining to wildlife conservation. [16] Some critics read the commentary as replicating harmful racial stereotypes, leading to calls for the commentary to be withdrawn. Keyan Tomaselli later described the furore as a moral panic. [17]

The Academy of Science of South Africa, which hosts the South African Journal of Science, issued a statement defending academic freedom and editorial independence, and announced that a special issue would be dedicated to debating the issue. [18] The journal published a special issue on the Nattrass commentary, including a reply by Nattrass to critics, on 10 July 2020. [19] Nattrass also defended herself in the media. [20] [21] [22] The Democratic Alliance, South Africa's official opposition party, also came out in support of Nattrass and academic freedom and issued its own statement. [23]

Nattrass's work on conservation includes papers on community based natural resource management in Namibia, wildlife in the Anthropocene, conservation conflict and the contested ethics of rodent control.

Awards

The Moral Economy of AIDS won the 2008 Bill Venter/Altron Literary Award, a national prize for academic books, [24] [25] and both it and The AIDS Conspiracy won the UCT Book Award, the university's top prize for outstanding books by faculty. [26] [27] Nattrass also won UCT's 2001 Distinguished Teacher Award. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Duesberg</span> German-American molecular biologist (born 1936)

Peter H. Duesberg is a German-American molecular biologist and a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his early research into the genetic aspects of cancer. He is a proponent of AIDS denialism, the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.

Various fringe theories have arisen to speculate about purported alternative origins for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), with claims ranging from it being due to accidental exposure to supposedly purposeful acts. Several inquiries and investigations have been carried out as a result, and each of these theories has consequently been determined to be based on unfounded and/or false information. HIV has been shown to have evolved from or be closely related to the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in West Central Africa sometime in the early 20th century. HIV was discovered in the 1980s by the French scientist Luc Montagnier. Before the 1980s, HIV was an unknown deadly disease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HIV/AIDS denialism</span> False belief that HIV does not cause AIDS

HIV/AIDS denialism is the belief, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Some of its proponents reject the existence of HIV, while others accept that HIV exists but argue that it is a harmless passenger virus and not the cause of AIDS. Insofar as they acknowledge AIDS as a real disease, they attribute it to some combination of sexual behavior, recreational drugs, malnutrition, poor sanitation, haemophilia, or the effects of the medications used to treat HIV infection (antiretrovirals).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Cape Town</span> Public university in Cape Town, South Africa

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest university in Sub-Saharan Africa in continuous operation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zackie Achmat</span> South African activist and film director

Abdurrazack "Zackie" Achmat is a South African activist and film director. He is a co-founder the Treatment Action Campaign and known worldwide for his activism on behalf of people living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa. He currently serves as board member and co-director of Ndifuna Ukwazi, an organisation which aims to build and support social justice organisations and leaders, and is the chairperson of Equal Education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Null</span> American talk radio host and author who advocates for alternative medicine

Gary Michael Null is an American talk radio host and author who advocates pseudoscientific alternative medicine and produces a line of questionable dietary supplements.

Celia Ingrid Farber is an American print journalist and author who has covered a range of topics for magazines including Spin, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Harper's, Interview, Salon, Gear, New York Press, Media Post, The New York Post and Sunday Herald, and is best known for her controversial beliefs about HIV and AIDS, and a 1998 report on O. J. Simpson's post-trial life. Farber is the daughter of radio talk pioneer Barry Farber and a graduate of New York University.

<i>Medical Hypotheses</i> Academic journal

Medical Hypotheses is a not-conventionally-peer-reviewed medical journal published by Elsevier. It was originally intended as a forum for unconventional ideas without the traditional filter of scientific peer review, "as long as are coherent and clearly expressed" in order to "foster the diversity and debate upon which the scientific process thrives." The publication of papers on AIDS denialism led to calls to remove it from PubMed, the United States National Library of Medicine online journal database. Following the AIDS papers controversy, Elsevier forced a change in the journal's leadership. In June 2010, Elsevier announced that "submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by the Editor and external reviewers to ensure their scientific merit".

The Perth Group is a group of HIV/AIDS denialists based in Perth, Western Australia who claim, in opposition to the scientific consensus, that the existence of HIV is not proven, and that AIDS and all the "HIV" phenomena are caused by changes in cellular redox due to the oxidative nature of substances and exposures common to all the AIDS risk groups, and are caused by the cell conditions used in the "culture" and "isolation" of "HIV".

Eliza Jane Scovill was the daughter of AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore, an HIV-positive activist who publicly questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, and supported HIV-positive pregnant women who want to avoid taking anti-HIV medication. Eliza Jane's May 16, 2005 death from AIDS, at the age of three and a half, sparked a social and legal controversy over her mother's decision not to take precautions during pregnancy and breastfeeding to prevent transmission of the virus, and her parents' decision to not have her treated for HIV infection during her life.

Seth C. Kalichman is an American clinical community psychologist and professor of social psychology at the University of Connecticut, known for his research into HIV/AIDS treatment and HIV/AIDS denialism. Kalichman is also the director of the Southeast HIV/AIDS Research & Education Project in Atlanta, Georgia, and Cape Town, South Africa, and the editor of the journal AIDS and Behavior. He is the developer of the Sexual Compulsivity Scale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamokgethi Phakeng</span> South African Mathematician and Research scientist

Rosina Mamokgethi Phakeng is a South African professor of mathematics education who in 2018 became a vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town (UCT). She has been the vice principal of research and innovation, at the University of South Africa and acting executive dean of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology at UNISA. In 2018 she was an invited speaker at the International Congresses of Mathematicians. In February 2023 it was announced that she would leave her position as vice-chancellor of UCT and take early retirement. She was succeeded by Professor Daya Reddy on 13 March 2023

In South Africa, HIV/AIDS denialism had a significant impact on public health policy from 1999 to 2008, during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki criticized the scientific consensus that HIV is the cause of AIDS beginning shortly after his election to the presidency. In 2000, he organized a Presidential Advisory Panel regarding HIV/AIDS including several scientists who denied that HIV caused AIDS.

Anna-Lise WilliamsonMASSAf is a Professor of Virology at the University of Cape Town. Williamson obtained her PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1985. Her area of expertise is human papillomavirus, but is also known on an international level for her work in developing vaccines for HIV. These vaccines have been introduce in phase 1 of clinical trial. Williamson has published more than 120 papers.

Zethu Matebeni is a sociologist, activist, writer, documentary film maker, Professor and South Africa Research Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies at the University of Fort Hare. She has held positions at the University of the Western Cape and has been senior researcher at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA) at UCT. She has been a visiting Professor Yale University and has received a number of research fellowships including those from African Humanities Program, Ford Foundation, the Fogarty International Centre and the National Research Foundation.

Floretta Avril Boonzaier is a South African psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Cape Town. She is noted for her work in feminist, critical and postcolonial psychologies, subjectivity in relation to race, gender and sexuality, and gender-based violence, and qualitative psychologies, especially narrative, discursive and participatory methods. She heads the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa with Shose Kessi.

John P. Moore is an American virologist and professor at Cornell University's Weill Cornell Medicine college, known for his research on HIV/AIDS. He previously worked at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center. A former section editor of the Journal of General Virology, he is an outspoken critic of HIV/AIDS denialism, including the work of Peter Duesberg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda-Gail Bekker</span> Zimbabwean physician & academic

Linda-Gail Bekker MBChB, DTMH, DCH, FCP(SA) is a Professor of Medicine and Chief Operating Officer of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation. She is also Director of the Desmund Tutu HIV Centre at the University of Cape Town. She is a Past President of the International AIDS Society (2016-18).

Leickness Chisamu Simbayi is a South African research psychologist and professor. He is the current Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Research of the Human Sciences Research Council where he studies the social aspects of STIs and HIV/AIDS. In 2002, Simbayi was a part of the research team that conducted the first South African National HIV Prevalence, Incidence, Behaviour and Communication Survey and has been involved in the implementation of all subsequent surveys.

Jeremy Seekings is a British-born academic who is professor of political studies and sociology at the University of Cape Town. He is the director of the university's Centre for Social Science Research.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Prof Nicoli Nattrass". Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  2. 1 2 "Nicoli Nattrass Research & Publications". School of Economics, University of Cape Town. Archived from the original on 17 December 2013. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  3. 1 2 Seekings, J.; Nattrass, N. (2008). Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa. Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-12875-8 . Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  4. ↑ "Rhodes Scholar List". Oxford University. Archived from the original on 23 December 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  5. ↑ "Nicoli Nattrass Profile". The Rhodes Project. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  6. ↑ "ASRU – Overview – Researchers". Centre for Social Science Research. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  7. ↑ Nattrass, Nicoli (2004). The Moral Economy of AIDS in South Africa. Cambridge University Press. p. 224. ISBN   0521548640.
  8. ↑ Heywood, Mark (2004). "Preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission in South Africa" (PDF). South African Journal of Human Rights. 19 (2).
  9. ↑ "Don't hold your breath". The Mail & Guardian. 18 August 2003. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  10. ↑ Nattrass, Nicoli (2007). Mortal combat: AIDS denialism and the struggle for antiretrovirals in South Africa. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. ISBN   9781869141325.
  11. ↑ Nattrass, Nicoli (2008). "AIDS and the Scientific Governance of Medicine in Post-Apartheid South Africa". African Affairs. Oxford University Press. 107 (427): 157–176. doi: 10.1093/afraf/adm087 .
  12. ↑ Chigwedere, Pride; Essex, M. (8 January 2010). "AIDS Denialism and Public Health Practice". AIDS and Behavior. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. 14 (2): 237–247. doi:10.1007/s10461-009-9654-7. ISSN   1090-7165. PMID   20058063. S2CID   22822335.
  13. ↑ Nattrass, Nicoli (2012). "The Social and Symbolic Power of AIDS Denialism". Skeptical Inquirer . Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. 36 (July/August): 34–38.
  14. ↑ Nattrass, Nicoli (2012). The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back . Cambridge University Press. pp.  240. ISBN   978-0231149129.
  15. ↑ "iCWild – Our team". Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  16. ↑ Nattrass, Nicoli (27 May 2020). "Why are black South African students less likely to consider studying biological sciences?". South African Journal of Science. 116 (5/6). doi: 10.17159/sajs.2020/7864 . ISSN   1996-7489 . Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  17. ↑ Tomaselli, Keyan (2020). "Peer review is academic citizenship". South African Journal of Science. ASSAf. 116 (9/10): 1–3. doi: 10.17159/sajs.2020/8728 .
  18. ↑ "ASSAf statement on Nattrass article". Home. 1 June 2020. Archived from the original on 9 June 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  19. ↑ Nattrass, Nicoli (2020). "In defense of exploratory research: a reply to critics". South African Journal of Science. ASSAf. 116 (5/6): 1–36. doi: 10.17159/sajs.2020/8604 .
  20. ↑ Nattrass, Nicoli (9 June 2020). "Tumult at UCT Part 1 – the challenges of transformation" . Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  21. ↑ Nattrass, Nicoli (10 June 2020). "Tumult at UCT Part 2: The dangers of allowing the thought police to take over" . Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  22. ↑ "I don't understand why anyone thinks this is dehumanising or racist – UCT Prof". 702. 10 June 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  23. ↑ "UCT is on a slippery slope to censoring its own academics and must retract its ill-considered reaction to Professor Nattrass' research paper". Democratic Alliance. 7 June 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  24. ↑ "Top book award for Nattrass". University of Cape Town. 14 July 2008. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  25. ↑ "Nicoli Nattrass Wins Top Academic Book Prize". University of Cape Town, School of Economics. 8 July 2008. Archived from the original on 13 November 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  26. ↑ "University of Cape Town Book Award". University of Cape Town. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  27. ↑ "Book marries ethical and economic aspects of AIDS". University of Cape Town. 23 May 2005. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
Nicoli Nattrass
Born (1961-05-30) 30 May 1961 (age 62)
OccupationProfessor at University of Cape Town (UCT)
Spouse Jeremy Seekings
AwardsUCT Book Award (2014, 2005)
Bill Venter/Altron Literary Award (2008)
UCT Distinguished Teacher Award (2001)
Rhodes Scholarship (1984)
Academic background
Education Stellenbosch University (BA)
University of Natal (MA)
Oxford University (DPhil)
Thesis Wages, Profits and Apartheid (1991)
Doctoral advisor Andrew Glyn
International
National
Academics
Other
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.